National Watch & Clock Museum offers look into timekeeping

Hamilton Space Clock. The Hamilton Space Clock or Mars Clock, manufactured by Hamilton Watch Company. The numbers around the face indicate Mars time, and the three subsidiary dials show Martian date, earth time and earth date.Courtesy of the National Watch & Clock Museum

At one time, pocket watches were as coveted and accessorized as our phones are today.

The proof is in the general store/jewelry store vignette at the National Watch & Clock Museum in Columbia. Besides a multitude of pocket watches, displayed as they would have been in a store in the first half of the 20th century, there were fancy options, such as stands, protective cases, watch case openers, chains and decorative fobs for the watch chains, which one could proudly identify affiliation in the Masons, Rotary or Elks Club.

The museum’s founding organization, the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, found in their research that knowledge of what time it was within the solar day used to be something reserved for the privileged, such as a priest, commanding officer or foreman, responsible for dictating the appointed time to do something. For a century or two, clocks were relegated to decorative distractions for the well-to-do.

Humans have never been able to control the weather, the seasons, or the passage of time itself. Measuring time is the closest we’ll get to it. According to museum director Noel Poirier, when watches and clocks became affordable for everyday people, it gave them back the control of their daily lives. For example, he said, “you report to work when your watch says it’s time to report to work.”

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But like hands going round a clock face, what comes around goes around. Poirier noted that because people today tend to check the time via phone, computer, or the most accurate timekeeper of all, the GPS, “watches are more jewelry and status, like it was in the old days.”

When the NAWCC built the museum in the 1970s — the Lancaster County town was chosen because it was where the keeper of the club’s records lived — there were “maybe 1,000” pieces, said Poirier. Today the National Watch & Clock Museum is 18,000 square feet, with a theater, research library, gift shop, and a collection numbering almost 13,000 pieces. There are tall clocks, wall clocks, “railroad grade” regulator clocks, watch manufacturing machinery, marine chronometers, European cuckoo clocks, Pennsylvania-made clocks, New England-made clocks, quartz and battery powered watches, tower clock mechanisms, atomic clocks, novelty clocks, and much more.

A majority of the timepieces still work — fortunately not all of them are running simultaneously. “At noon, for four or five minutes on either side of noon, all you hear are chiming clocks,” Poirier said.

The museum also features one or two changing exhibits each year. On view through August is “Enlisting Time,” a look at the development of the watch through the stories of military men and women. It includes a pocket watch given to George Washington as a gift from Thomas Jefferson; a 1962 Rolex that belonged to James Bond creator Ian Fleming, who was an intelligence officer in the British Navy; a watch lost by James Richard Hoel after his plane was shot down in World War II; and a Timex worn by U.S. Marines Corps Staff Sgt. Jason Shifflet when he was injured in the Iraqi desert in 2003 by an accident that rolled his light armored vehicle.

Opening in April will be “Wake Up!”, a tribute to the alarm clock, or as Poirier put it, “how alarm clocks have annoyed us over the years.”

One of the clocks on display, which is on loan from the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, has ties to the area. It’s a 30-hour tall clock made around 1770 by German immigrant Jacob Godshalk, who honed his craft on an 82-acre plot he bought in Towamencin before he relocated his clock building business to Philadelphia.

A must-see is a demonstration of the gigantic Engle monument clock, which not only tells time, but the day of the week, the tides, seasons and moon phases. Taking more than 20 years to build, it was billed by its Hazleton maker as “the Eighth Wonder of the World” because of the entertainment value in the clock’s moving parts that make references to the Bible, Molly Pitcher, muses, and “the three ages of man.” The Engle clock drew crowds as it toured the country from the 1870s through 1951. It somehow disappeared before turning up in 1983 in a barn in upstate New York.

How did we get the 365.25-day year? Where did the word “month” come from? How does a pendulum keep time? When and how did the tall clock get the nickname “grandfather clock?” And when did men decide that wearing a wristwatch wasn’t just for women? The answers to these questions and more can be found at the National Watch & Clock Museum.

“Our job is to tell the whole story of time,” Poirier said.

You should budget an hour to an hour and a half for your visit. Don’t forget your smart phone because the museum is loaded with QR codes to scan and unlock even more information about the museum’s collection.

“It’s amazing,” said Mount Joy resident Joanne Myers, who recently brought a friend visiting from out of town for a visit. “I had no idea of the extensive collection.”

While you’re there

Myers, who considers the National Watch & Clock Museum part of her back yard, noted that the area offers noteworthy antique shopping, and suggested at least driving by these local points of interest:

*Wright’s Ferry Mansion, 38 S. Second St., Columbia. Built in 1738, the house is evidence of a westward movement of a handful of English Quakers that left Chester and Darby in favor of the then-uninhabited area along the Susquehanna River. Hours: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays May-October. Admission is charged. Call (717) 684-4325.

*Nissley Vineyards & Winery, 140 Vintage Drive, Bainbridge. The family-owned winery is open seven days a week year round. The first two samples are free, then it’s $2 for up to four more samples. They also hold summer evening lawn concerts. Call (800) 522-2387 or visit www.nissleywine.com.

*Donegal Presbyterian Church, 1891 Donegal Springs Road, Mount Joy. The congregation was established in 1727. The 1787 deed for the church land was restored and framed in 2011 and is on display on the wall of the downstairs gallery. Visit www.donegalpresbyterianchurch.org.

*John Wright Restaurant, 234 N. Front St., Wrightsville. The setting is a restored warehouse along the Susquehanna. The Four Seasons Dining Room, a timbered structure that extends from the warehouse, is enclosed on three sides with glass, and offers a view of the river at one of its widest points. Call 717-252-0416 or visit www.johnwrightrestaurant.com.